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Topic: [COMPILATION] Final Mod Pack (FMP) (Read 516010 times)

The goal of this project is to make huge community modpack well balanced with multi-language adds for strings (en-GB, en-US and fr strings for begining).I have indexed all existing mods and classified in the following way :

Of course I will not included the totality of the existing mods, but to choose most interesting and to balance them in the game.

Thanks for your support !

EDIT: The above threads are no longer valid, this is the only active Final Mod Pack thread.The collection has since grown to a huge multimod with a high level of internal intricacy. It still its initial ideas though, which is to put various interested mod content in one place and also to balance them against one another. This is what we do here.The list of included mods is quite long, so check the description on the mod page.Enjoy our collection!- Solarius Scorch

EDIT 2:For clarification: the FMP is not meant to change core features of the game. It is not an total conversion, it's more of an expansion pack. Therefore I haven't touched anything that would influence gameplay too much, except making laser and plasma way less available - that was necessary in order to do things I wanted to do.My current project, The X-Com Files, a successor to the Final Mod Pack, is much bolder with the changes.- Solarius Scorch

Oooh, I want in! I'm not from France, but I speak decent French, and I wanted to do a similar project myself.

Is there a development plan for this megamod? I would like to see it, hopefully propose something... I believe my main help would be with balance, as I believe this is the most important problem with our modding community (everyone's giving insane stats to everything).

Good decision. I guess if we want to use Alien Armoury Expanded (which I recommend; after all it's my own mod and one of my most successful ones), we should start with this, since it may affect other mods.

Slow tech Progress... Oh boy D: There were so many contradictory ideas ion that thread that I'm not really sure what it does any more. I know I liked some of them, and at the same time hated some others. I guess we'll have to discuss it from scratch, if you want my contribution... I have my own vision which I can share.

As for the additional basic human weapons (shotguns, snipers etc.), I'm all for it. This part needs balance badly, but it's also really interesting.

Also let me ask, do we balance the game for the UfoExtender accuracy or not? I would personally lean towards using this, since it seems to make the game more fun to me, although I hated it with a passion at first; its main good point is making some space for non-auto weapons (because hitting with auto fire is borderline impossible at any real distance), and therefore makes the equipment more varied (sniper rifles, machine guns). I will adapt though.

I found Slow tech Progress interesting because in the vanilla game the resale of aliens artefacts gives too much money. With only 3 probes you can practically fill up laboratory with scientists ! And if the alien weapons researchs is more long/difficult, it will give more space to other secondary weapons.I still miss retreat to have a precise idea on this mod in particular, but I do not want to withdraw any options which make it to improve the interest of this game. And it's possible to use only a partial of mod. So all is question of balance.

Personaly I use the precision according to the distance (I use many thing :p). For the few weapons which I tested, Sniper is very powerful, shootgun nearly useless, and minigun very funny (2 hits on 20 fire, not bad for 8% accuracy !)

All right then, let me say my preferences regarding plasma weapons:I am in favour of making them harder to research. I'm not sure how yet - or rather there are many options - but I think they're a bit too easy to invent now.What I am not in favour is forbidding X-Com soldiers from using alien weapons when researched. Alien weapons are normal guns, with a trigger and everything, and the aliens themselves are humanoid, so preventing the player from using them as is and forcing him or her to make new "terran plasma weapons" is an extremely lame, gamey, unbelievable concept. Of course we can have new terran plasma weapons in addition to the alien armament, if we find it necessary (plasma shotgun maybe, or whatever we want; I got nothing at the moment).I also play with the idea of slightly delaying lasers - maybe by forcing the player to research UFO Power Source first (as power supply is the only major problem we currently have in real life with hand-held lasers). I have more ideas here, but let's take small steps

As for the shotgun, I like them, but I'm using a slightly modified version.

Thanks for your idea ^^I joined you about the laser technology, moreover I am always surprising to start by developing the laser pistol! In the order of things, it should be to start with the Canon of the vessel, then to gradually reduce the size of the weapon towards the pistol which I find very useful as a secondary weapon.The idea of related the laser to the discovery an energy source is good, but I will rather see dissociating from technology alien, except with allien alloys (searches on batteries lithium-Ions-Alloy for example, and it's possible to manufacture alloy).

It's an interesting idea, but also rather shocking. The idea of starting with large lasers is controversial, but I kinda like it actually. However, those various stages of power sources... I find it rather stretching, to be honest. My main gripe comes with the hybrid battery, which comes from any biological alien autopsy - why? Aliens aren't really that different from Earthy organisms, so where does this special battery come from?Perhaps it would be better to turn to alien cyber implants? What I mean is either Floater (flottant) or Muton autopsy. Both these races are proven to have cybernetic enhancements, which could be meaningful here.Also, I would rather move the Heavy Laser from the Laser Cannon step and move it further, perhaps to the Laser Rifle stage or parallel to it). The weight difference between an aircraft cannon and a hand-held weapon is enormous, and between two hand-held weapons - not so much.The rest of the graph looks fine to me, except maybe the Laser Shotgun.

I like your ideas. maybe it would be possible to semi-fragment this "overhaul mod" into one central "FMP.rul" which can be supplemented by optional "FMP_addonXY.rul" subsets?

the main ruleset would change the research tree in general, perhaps adding more tech levels or whatever, and the addon-rulesets would cover the additional weapons/craft/armors/whatever that you may or may not use?

Thanks for your replies, I need to dig it :pI have another idea for Laser Tech. It's 100% based on real human technologies. Ok, it is not 100% correct from the scientific point of view but I like this path. Alien alloy and Elerium just help to optimise last weapons.

Hmm... I'm definitely not a fan of Empty Levels in games, and that's exactly what this plan does: you need to research Tech 1, which gives you nothing, then Tech 2, which also gives you nothing, and then finally Tech 3, which gives you big fat nothing. Only the fourth tech gives you anything real, so we can simply roll the first three into one single research called "Laser Technology" - and hey, that's what the original game did.

My point is that sure, we can build a new tech tree, but we need these items to mean something - or at least a large majority of them. We should also make most techs prerequisites for more than just one more advanced tech, so that they would be more meaningful and create a more interesting mesh of dependencies.

As for the next part of the tree... Items destroyed when used up? No clips? Lol, why would I threw away a perfectly fine laser gun just because it ran out of juice? And even if it made sense, which it totally doesn't, it's impossible to code it in. No, either we have normal clips or unlimited shots; there's simply no other option.

Below is a suggestion for modification of the tech tree. It still contains some empty techs, but no more than the original game.

(Note that I included a suggestion for gauss weapons tech tree - it's mostly as an example, though I do entertain it as a possible alternative for lasers.)

I admit to have been a little extreme But I am not convinced to put alien tech in laser tree is a good thing, for me that must human research only.Is on the other hand, to use the aliens interrogations to resolve aliens technologies is a super idea !

I see you new gauss mod, I will compare this masterpièce with railgun_v2 mod.

I admit to have been a little extreme But I am not convinced to put alien tech in laser tree is a good thing, for me that must human research only.

No problem, we can always assume that this technology is already known before day 1. But my main intention was to delay laser weapons tech a little, to make standard firearms viable for a longer period than 2 weeks. And since we did not have the capabilities of building laser rifles back in 1999 (and we still don't now), I thought it must be alien tech somehow... But we can find another solution if needed.

Done ! (download in first post)But I need some help for testing, balencing and with this strange "listOrder" (?!?) instructions.

good night

I'll take care of the listOrder, don't worry

EDIT: listOrder flags are mostly done. I just didn't do the [crafts] section yet, because I don't have the tools for it at the moment, but manufacture, research and ufopaedia are ready. No other changes were made to the file.